Looped In

From urban renewal to suburban sprawl, Houston’s real estate market is going through one of its most dynamic times in decades. Join real estate and development reporter Nancy Sarnoff as she meets the city’s developers, deal makers and dreamers and dishes with colleagues on all things Houston real estate.

Nancy and Allyn talk to Chronicle writer Molly Glentzer about her story on dismantling the 18th century ballroom at La Colombe d’Or, the boutique hotel on Montrose Boulevard, to make way for a luxury residential tower.

Houston native and L.A.-based filmmaker Jon Schwartz talks about his 1987 documentary This is our home, it is not for sale. The film explores integration, real estate blockbusting and white flight in Riverside, a historic Houston neighborhood along Brays Bayou.

In its failed bid for Amazon’s second headquarters, Houston offered up three urban sites with tremendous potential: a vacant downtown skyscraper, a sprawling property along Buffalo Bayou and an aging department store in the center of urban life. Nancy and Allyn talk with Chronicle reporter Katherine Blunt about her recent story on the snub, the sites and the silver lining.

Nancy gets a look behind the curtain on an industry that’s playing a key role in Houston’s post-Hurricane Harvey real estate market: investing in flooded homes. She and her Chronicle colleague David Hunn talk to Brian Spitz, a local investor who’s bought hundreds of inundated properties, about the local investment ecosystem and how it influences the market.

For the first episode of 2018, Nancy and Allyn asked their social media followers to cast their votes for some of 2017's most outstanding real estate deals and developments in the inaugural Loopie Awards. They, along with the help of some of their Chronicle colleagues who have been covering many of the projects, discuss the winners of "the Loopies."

Scott McClelland, the newly minted president of H-E-B, will open nine stores in and around Houston in 2018 and will begin building what could be H-E-B’s most anticipated store yet: Meyerland. McClelland joins Nancy to talk Meyerland, kosher tortillas and how H-E-B competes in such a crowded grocery market.

Houston architect Brett Zamore earned high praise more than a decade ago for his modern reinvention of the shotgun house. His next move was designing and building kit houses in the urban core. Zamore joins Nancy and Allyn to discuss his latest design: the “zFab,” a tiny pre-fabricated dwelling he sees as a counterpoint to the city’s hulking townhomes and out-of-scale McMansions.

New storm data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA, could lead to sweeping changes in the way real estate is developed in the Houston area.

The research shows the amount of rain typical of a 100-year storm has risen by as much as 5 inches. That means the Houstonians could expect up to 18 inches of rain in a single day compared with the previous estimate of 12 to 14 inches.

Harris County government reporter Mihir Zaveri joins Nancy Sarnoff to explain how developers, home owners and businesses could be affected by the new data, which is used to determine floodplain regulations, map flood zones and design food control projects.

The data, which is preliminary and subject to change, is expected to be finalized and published in May. It will be the first statewide update to NOAA's rainfall estimates in 50 years.

A world where a self-driving car is a common mode of transportation is not that far away. Such a scenario has implications for real estate development. Take office buildings, which in Houston are required to have 2 1/2 parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of space. Will today's newest buildings be obsolete by 2040 when fewer people drive to work – or at least park there? Hal Sharp, a principal with the Houston office of Gensler, joins Nancy and Allyn to talk about how buildings can be developed to accommodate cars today and people in those spaces a couple decades from now.

Two decades from now, downtown Houston could be a be a thriving neighborhood where the streets teem with life seven days a week. In this future world, start-ups in modern offices would create the latest technological advances in the fields of energy and health care. Streets would be filled with driverless cars and a 5-mile pedestrian and bike loop would connect downtown with surrounding neighborhoods. Central Houston’s Bob Eury recently presented this ambitious proposal to a group of downtown stakeholders. He joins Nancy and Allyn to talk in more detail about the plan and why it could work.

A pair of developers from Montreal join Nancy and Allyn to talk urban housing trends from around the world and their newest Houston project: an upscale development in Midtown with 14 pint-sized condominiums.

Before the storm hit, Amber and Lenny Ambrose packed up their two young kids and small dog and drove to Amber's parent's house in Nederland, outside of Beaumont. The Ambrose's house in Candlelight Forest flooded during the Tax Day storm in 2016, and they didn't want a repeat of what happened then when they woke up the morning after the storm to soggy floors and confused kiddos. They made some important preparations and left town. Their flood insurance policy renewed Aug. 27, the night Harvey flooded their house. It was a good thing they didn't let their policy lapse, even though they could have. They were told in 2015 they were no longer required to carry it. Amber tells their story in the final episode of this Harvey series.

From episode 23, Nancy and Erin talk to Chronicle journalists Mike Morris (City Hall) and Mihir Zaveri (Harris County) about their reporting on floods and development after two major flooding events two years in a row.

Residents of Canyon Gate say they were never told about the warning that said their neighborhood could be subject to severe flooding because it was built in a so-called flood pool behind Barker Reservoir. Investors who bought millions in bonds that financed the subdivision weren't told either. Houston Chronicle's James Drew talks to Nancy about his investigation into Canyon Gate and what was and wasn't disclosed.

As Harvey's flood waters continued to rise in Braes Heights, Scott Davis, his wife and their two young daughters fled to a neighbor's place – a brand new house built five feet above grade. As Davis sees it, the safest place to ride out the hurricane was in a new house. As a home building consultant, he also addresses past Houston floods, how the market responded and how development may change in the future.

Before Hurricane Harvey's flood waters could even recede, the national media was reporting on Houston's lack of zoning and how it played a role in the floods.

Local law professor, land use expert and repeat Looped In guest Matt Festa explains how that's a distorted argument and cites a report he recently co-authored on land use in Houston, the "Unzoned City."

From his second-story apartment in west Houston, Milton Lawson thought he had avoided the worst of Harvey. But then officials began releasing water from the nearby Addicks reservoir. Lawson recalls his journey from evacuation, to rundown FEMA hotel, and then back to his apartment a week after the storm to try to retrieve the one thing that mattered to him most.

Looped In returns with a multi-part series exploring the lives of several Houstonians who survived Hurricane Harvey but remain in a state of limbo as they seek to rebuild after the worst rainstorm in U.S. history. In coming episodes listeners will also hear from real estate and development experts who will discuss what the storm means for Houston's future and the future of development in our city.

Research has shown that living near a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Starbucks can increase the value of your home. The same might be true of craft beer breweries, these suddenly popular hangouts that have been multiplying in Houston's inner city and some suburbs too. Nancy talks to Chronicle editor Ronnie Crocker about the craft brewery movement and how it's changing the real estate market. Not only is Ronnie the Chronicle’s beer writer but he lives within biking distance of four breweries.

Retailers don’t just take up space in shopping malls and strip centers. Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart and others have been building giant warehouses to store everything from toothpaste to toilet paper to toys. Nancy talks to Chronicle reporter Dylan Baddour about what’s behind the building boom.

Nancy hits the road to visit painter John Calaway in his new studio in Acres Homes, a historically African-American neighborhood that has long attracted artists for its open space and affordable land. Now, though, high-end developers are discovering the area, offering hope for better infrastructure while introducing fears of gentrification.

Nancy and her Chronicle colleagues Allyn West and Jody Schmal discuss the hour they spent with the new owners and consultants (including James Beard award-winner Chris Shepherd) of the Heights-area farmers market.

When real estate investor Mark Davis released some early renderings for a redevelopment project on lower Westheimer, they were criticized by some who didn’t like the plans for parking on the site. Davis tells Nancy and Allyn what he actually wants to do with the property, clears up some misconceptions, and voices some of the challenges of developing in arguably the most urban spot in town.

City planner Christopher Andrews joins Nancy and her co-host Allyn West to discuss how Houston’s parking ordinance and other building regulations shape the way real estate is developed here. They discuss one project at length – a lower Montrose antique shop where a redevelopment proposal has caused a stir among a group of Houstonians passionate about development.